X -Where Twitter goes to die.

[sugar magnolia]

Bannon and the Disruptors

I think they played at our homecoming dance back in the 70s.

[Ben-Prime]

So, just a thought -- given that the lawsuit is over, should this thread be put to sleep and we migrate the ongoing "Elon is jerking Twitter around from inside the house" conversation to a new place?

[much ado]

We could change the title of the thread and continue it.

[RTH10260]

Note:

we already have a Twitter thread at https://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=486

[Foggy]

!

Message from: Foggy

So, just a thought -- given that the lawsuit is over, should this thread be put to sleep and we migrate the ongoing "Elon is jerking Twitter around from inside the house" conversation to a new place? we already have a Twitter thread at https://thefogbow.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=486 Instead, I think I will merge the two threads, and there will be one big Twitter thread. Of course, all the posts in the merged thread will have their own Subject lines, so you can still see which posts were in the lawsuit thread and which ones were in the merged Twitter thread. Gosh, the 21st century is so exciting! And look ... it takes a bit of time to build some large infrastructure, even on the Intertoobz. Up until the end of last week, there was some serious doubt whether Musk would be able to do the deal at all, and it hasn't been a whole week yet. I am fairly certain that behind the scenes, where you and I cannot look, some industrious souls are building a big, beautiful replacement for the original Twitter machine, and it will be unveiled sooner than later. That's a guess, and a hope, and an estimate, but you can take it to the bank (you just can't try to deposit it or trade it or nuthin'). And when that happens, we'll need a whole 'nother thread just to deal with that, while we're all joining and stuff. I'ma let this thread sit until tomorrow so people know I'm gonna merge it in advance.

[raison de arizona]

A free floating thought is that small scale moderation isn't rocket surgery. A post here, a troll there. On a big scale though, it becomes exponentially harder. And really hard is the step to automate moderation, which is to some degree required. Humans do weird things and can figure out ways around stuff.

Anyway, trolling the bird site, I'm read rumors that Musk took the Twitter monthly holiday "Day of Rest" off the calendars. And that the current staff cut on the table is half. And the ones that make the cut are most likely going to have to start coming into the office, no more remote work.

I'd bounce.

[Dave from down under]

Moderation has never been easy. King George had a go at it, and it led to losing a colony, and later a continent.

But he was insane. Literally.

Another thing he has in common with Elron?

[Slim Cognito]

With our labor shortage in general, and our lack of IT specialists specifically, I'd think the twitter crew would do just fine elsewhere. But that's just my arrogant opinion.

[RTH10260]

I was told that Truth Social was looking for folks that like to do moderation cause Google requested it

[raison de arizona]

It has begun.

“Team, In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday,” the email to workers read, instructing them of how they may learn whether their position was affected. “We recognize that this will impact a number of individuals who have made valuable contributions to Twitter, but this action is unfortunately necessary to ensure the company’s success moving forward.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/technolo ... r-layoffs/

Looking for the full email, should anyone come across it.

[somerset]

I was going to post this on the Twitter v Elon thread, but since that's closing and moving over here, I figgerd I'd git here first


What if his vision for Twitter is to get rid of advertisers entirely, and move to the "member supported" model, ala PBS. Or arguably, even here? Getting rid of, or at least strongly limiting, advertisements is a business model publications like Consumer Reports, Cook's Illustrated or The Economist* use to establish trust with their readers. Could this be the end goal.

Maybe a somewhat moderated version of USENET, where anarchy reigned supreme?

*One of these three is crap, in my opinion. I subscribe to the other two

[John Thomas8]

I was going to post this on the Twitter v Elon thread, but since that's closing and moving over here, I figgerd I'd git here first


What if his vision for Twitter is to get rid of advertisers entirely, and move to the "member supported" model, ala PBS. Or arguably, even here? Getting rid of, or at least strongly limiting, advertisements is a business model publications like Consumer Reports, Cook's Illustrated or The Economist* use to establish trust with their readers. Could this be the end goal.

Maybe a somewhat moderated version of USENET, where anarchy reigned supreme?

*One of these three is crap, in my opinion. I subscribe to the other two

That "vision" assumes he's an honest person.

He clearly isn't.

[busterbunker]

Full "unsigned internal memo" is here:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/3/2343 ... november-4

There's a whole lotta layoffin' going on: Lyft, Stripe, Opendoor, etc.
https://techcrunch.com/tag/layoffs/

[somerset]

Full "unsigned internal memo" is here:
https://www.theverge.com/2022/11/3/2343 ... november-4

There's a whole lotta layoffin' going on: Lyft, Stripe, Opendoor, etc.
https://techcrunch.com/tag/layoffs/

And even more worrisome:

Amazon has frozen hiring for corporate roles, and anonymous sources tell Business Insider that Apple has "paused almost all hiring," potentially through late 2023.

https://www.linkedin.com/news/story/app ... qhFg%3D%3D

[Greatgrey]

This could be fun.
https://edd.ca.gov/en/Jobs_and_Training ... vices_WARN

[RTH10260]

Similar will apply for European subsidiaries under EU worker laws.

Consultation with the workforce, theoretical attempt is to move staff to a different position within the company, alternate is to set up a job search facility, support in requalification education. etc.

ETA downsizing the moderators could be difficult cause European laws on free speech and what constitutes libel and defamation tend to be much stricter, and can vary by country.

[poplove]

Entire thread:

Prof Paul Bernal
Twitter logo
Nov 1 • 11 tweets • 2 min read
Anyway, my tuppence worth on Musk and Twitter. He’s in for a rocky ride, and the question for me is whether his ego is going to make him destroy Twitter. Right now, what’s pretty clear is that he doesn’t understand what makes Twitter work. 1/10

There are three things he doesn’t seem to grasp. Firstly, he seems to think he’s bought a tech company (‘not enough coders, too many managers’) when what he’s really bought is a community of users. 2/10

What makes Twitter work, what makes it potentially valuable, isn’t the tech (which isn’t that special) but the community that uses it - that, in particular, it’s become the medium of choice of journalists and politicians. 3/10

That’s the value, right there. Every journalist worth their salt uses Twitter - and most use it a lot. Ditto pretty much every politician. They’re the user base he should care about, not the right-wing-nut-job community. But he doesn’t even understand *them* 4/10

Right-wing-nut-jobs don’t just want a place where they can rant, abuse and say whatever words they want. If they did, they’d be quite content with Gab, Parler, Truth Social, some bits of 4Chan, Reddit etc. See, they’ve got plenty of spaces. 5/10

No, what they want is a place where they can rant *at the libs*, at the MSM, at the people they hate. If those people aren’t there (and they aren’t on Gab, Parler, Truth Social etc), the ranting isn’t nearly as fun. So if Musk manages to drive the libs away, that’s ruined. 6/10

If the libs are driven off, the right-wing will be jubilant for a while, but then bored. And then Twitter dies. So Musk has to keep the libs on board. Oh, and the advertisers too, because they’ll run like hell if Twitter’s just a hate-speech hell-site. 7/10

And that means moderation. It means keeping the Nazis off the site. It means keeping control of abuse and hate speech. It means cutting down the misinformation. All things Musk doesn’t want to do. If he turns Twitter into a hell-site, he kills it. 8/10

So what can he do? It’s not easy. There’s no simple solution, no magic wand. Free speech is bloody difficult. I’d suggest he read Habermas, but of course he won’t. So it’ll be messy, and I suspect he’ll just get bored eventually, but who knows? 9/10

That’s the thing. Handing over Twitter to a massive-ego, massive-wealth, unpredictable billionaire is kind of a metaphor for the whole way we’ve dealt with the internet. It’s a mess. We just have to do what we can. 10/10

P.S. I realise I didn’t say what the three things are.

1) That it’s the community that matters, not the tech
2) Where the value is in that community
3) What the right-wing-nut-jobs want.

[Greatgrey]

Scene 2

[Kriselda Gray]

Off Topic

Off Topic

poskabul

Is that a Pogoism?

Popeyeism as in "Gollix Golive, anyting is poskabul. Ah ga ga ga ga"

its also Danish for "post box."

[pipistrelle]

Twitter former employees are posting under hashtags #lovewhereyouworked and #oneteam. It’s moving.

[pipistrelle]

6BEE296F-A176-425F-A7B7-5DEBF4336B59.jpeg (188.41 KiB) Viewed 608 times

[neonzx]

Mike Sington@MikeSington

The new Twitter Blue subscription, which gives you a blue check verification, starts Nov 7, according to internal documents seen by The NY Times. You will not have to provide any proof of identification. In the past, Twitter required government issued ID to become verified.

So... You can get a blue-check if your payment method is successful. Sounds like legit verification. "subscription" not "verification"

[Greatgrey]

Mike Sington@MikeSington

The new Twitter Blue subscription, which gives you a blue check verification, starts Nov 7, according to internal documents seen by The NY Times. You will not have to provide any proof of identification. In the past, Twitter required government issued ID to become verified.

So... You can get a blue-check if your payment method is successful. Sounds like legit verification. "subscription" not "verification"

Yes, and many of us are changing our avatar names & profiles to Elon Musk on the 7th.

[raison de arizona]

Twitter former employees are posting under hashtags #lovewhereyouworked and #oneteam. It’s moving.

Spent awhile doomscrolling the tags. Felt like I was bearing witness. Really moving indeed.

[Foggy]

stupid.jpg